


Someone You Loved

by IBrokeBad



Category: Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Family, Inside jokes, Memory Loss, and they were ROOMMATES, but also angst, dean and elena are best friends, like a LOT of inside jokes, roommate shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2020-11-09 11:47:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20852912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IBrokeBad/pseuds/IBrokeBad
Summary: Dean comes home one day to find five more roommates than he had when he left. Turns out, he lost seven years of memories, and no one knows how it happened. Now he has to hit rewind to find out what went wrong. A controlling little brother. Annoying vampires.  A protective angel and a pregnant witch. Dean has enough to figure out without the girl with those damn brown eyes looking at him like that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's something that I've been working on for a while. It started out as something for me to turn to when I got too stuck on my other projects. Turns out, I got stuck a lot, and this grew into something much bigger than I intended. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this! I honestly loved writing something much lighter than I would normally. As usual, this is just the set-up, so the Deanlena fluffy fluff really starts happening in the next chapter. Let me know what you think!

_Stay._

The word flutters through his head briefly before he wakes, and its chased away by the light.

Sunlight hits his face, streaming in through the windshield and bathing him in warmth. His body scrunches awkwardly in the driver's seat of the car. The cold window his head presses against is soothing until he lifts his head.

_Fuck._ Pain. Sharp, sharp pain. Like a needle sliding through his temple. A harsh throbbing that had been kept at bay by the cold glass.

He lets out a hoarse groan and squints out through the window. It's morning.

Grimacing, he takes in the empty lot he's parked in. The unfamiliar restaurant. The gentle wave of the tree branches. The hush of cars gliding past in the muffled rush of the early morning.

Had he fallen asleep in the car last night?

After scrubbing the last remnants of sleep from his eyes, he stretches, then an angrier pain shoots through his head. Wincing, he starts up the engine.

. . .

Dean scowls as he trudges down the dirt path from the car towards the bunker. His head is _killing_ him. How much did he drink last night? The bag slung across his back doesn't have painkillers in it, he'd checked. His first thought is that Sam should have some. He's always prepared. But, seeing as his brother isn't around, he simply huffs and keeps walking. Where had he gone without Sam last night?

He reaches the door and freezes, staring at the doorknob.

_A key. I need a key._

He shakes his head to clear the fog away. This headache must be worse than he thinks it is if he can't even think straight. He pats his pockets and frowns. Nothing. He fishes around in his bag, but again comes up empty. _What the hell?_

With a frustrated sigh, he bangs a fist against the metal door. "Hey! Sammy, you in there?"

After a few moments, the door swings open and Sam stands in its place looking breathless. As soon as his eyes focus on Dean, he lets out a rushed exhale.

"What the hell, Dean?" he says, simultaneously annoyed and relieved. "We thought something happened to you."

"Me? What the hell happened to you?" Dean asks. He lowers his brows and stares. Sam looks different. Taller? No. He'd been tall when Dean had seen him yesterday, but now he just seems broader, less . . . soft. More tired around the eyes.

Sam frowns, "What do you mean?"

"You look like an old man," he jokes.

Sam doesn't laugh like Dean expects. Instead he pauses, then, "Why did you leave without your keys?"

Dean blinks. "I guess I forgot."

Sam looks skeptical. "They're attached to your car keys, Dean."

Dean scoffs. "What? Since when?" he pulls out the keys to the Impala, and sure enough, two extra keys dangle from them, each clearly labelled in handwriting he doesn't recognize. _Front. Back._ How had he not noticed that?

"I didn't know you did that. Thanks, I guess."

Dean moves to enter the bunker, but Sam holds up a hand to stop him. He's alarmed now, looking at Dean as if he had something in an alien language written on his face. "Hold on a second. You don't remember getting those keys attached?"

His headache is becoming unbearable. "I don't know, Sam, should I? Move out of the way, I have a monster migraine." He slides past Sam and into the bunker. God, he needs water.

Sam's footsteps thud behind him. "It's just that it was a pretty memorable day, Dean. I have a hard time believing you don't remember it."

Dean sighs, heading down the steps and making a beeline for their medicine cabinet in the infirmary. Why attaching keys to other keys would be a memorable event, Dean doesn't understand. But the pain shooting through his temples takes up the space where confusion might have been. He yanks the cabinet open and roots through its contents roughly.

The damn thing is filled with sticky notes. He doesn't bother reading them, just pushes past in search of something that'll stop the hammering inside his skull. But everything in there had been moved since he'd last looked. First of all, there's a shit ton of extra things that surely aren't his. Vitamins, supplements, and . . . flea repellent? And why the hell are there tampons in here?

"Dean?" Sam says. He's been calling for a while now.

Giving up on his search with a frustrated curse, he turns to his brother and snaps, "What?" Sam's expression of concern finally hits him. It's a familiar look, one that he only sees during certain emergencies.

"Dean, where did you go?"

"What do you mean?"

Sam steps closer to him. "You were gone for three days; we were worried sick. You didn't tell anyone where you were going—everyone was ready to go looking for you."

There's that _we_ again. He'd noticed it earlier but hadn't fully absorbed it. "Everyone" certainly sounds like a dramatic way of referring to their little group that consists only of Sam and Cas.

"Three days?" Dean says. That can't be right. "Dude, I just saw you yesterday."

Sam shakes his head. "What's the last thing that you remember?"

"Well, I—" he thinks back. He must've been out on a case, then. But why can't he remember what or where it was? A cold shiver of panic slides through him. He must've begun the day here, right? Here . . . then where? Shit. The harder he digs, the more slippery his train of thought becomes.

"Wait, I got it," Dean says at last. "It was a nasty vampire case. Something about a trail of bodies in the woods."

Something clicks in Sam's eyes. He runs a hand through his hair. "If the case you're talking about is the one I think you're talking about . . ." he stares at Dean again, as if he can diagnose him this way. "This is bad, Dean. I need to call Cas or Bonnie—"

"Bonnie?" Dean says.

Sam takes one look at the confusion on Dean's face and groans. "Yeah, this is bad. God, Elena's gonna freak—"

Elena? Angry and desperate now, Dean tries in vain to find these names somewhere in his brain. He feels a mild fluttering in his stomach, but there's nothing else. It's like searching in a dark room with arms flailing.

"Who's Elena? Am I supposed to know who that is?" The throbbing in his head intensifies. "Sam, I swear, if you don't start explaining right now, I'll—"

"Threatening your brother? Glad to see I'm finally rubbing off on you, Winchester. Where have you been?"

Dean turns, finding an unfamiliar man sauntering in from the hallway. Sharp blue eyes track him like prey. The smirk on his mouth makes Dean dislike him instantly.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean demands, glaring between the stranger and Sam, who's now grimacing as if overwhelmed with the task of having to explain this whole ordeal.

The man looks offended. "What, too many blows to the head, Winchester?"

This is insane. Sam must be playing some kind of joke and it isn't funny.

"That's Damon," Sam says absently, then, "Dean, I think—"

"Damon," Dean repeats with distaste. He doesn't like the name. Nor does he like the face that accompanies it. He barely knows the guy and Dean's gut is practically screaming how irritated he is by his presence.

Damon wrinkles his nose, peering at him from beside Sam. "You don't look so hot, man."

"Neither do you," Dean replies automatically.

"_Dean_," Sam says slowly, commanding Dean's attention. After sending a final scowl in the strange man's direction, Dean met Sam's eyes. The look on his face causes him to still.

"Dean, I think your memories were wiped."

. . .

He definitely doesn't like Damon.

It took Dean all of sixty seconds to solidify that opinion as he sits like a boy in the nurse's office, waiting as Sam and Damon huddle over a phone and discuss him. _Discuss him_. As if he isn't even in the room.

The instant Sam had thrown out his theory, Damon barked out a laugh that in no way matched the gravity of the situation. Dean shot him a look, which only served to make the man howl louder. Who the hell does this guy think he is, marching in like he lives here?

_Does_ he live here? God, there's no way in _hell_ Dean would have approved of that. Sam, maybe. _Maybe_. But Dean? Let's just say he's a bit more selective about who gets to run into him in the bathroom.

Dean's eyes widen as the possibilities hit him like a punch to the gut. Just how much of his memory had been taken? How much time? He must've gone nuts if he'd let this asshole stay with them just like that. Either that or the Dean he is now is nothing like the Dean that Damon knows. The thought makes him cringe.

He looks around the living room. He hadn't noticed when he first rushed in, but the bunker looks different. Like there are, indeed, much to Dean's displeasure, more people living here than there had been when he left it. A jacket strewn on the couch. An unfinished game of monopoly at the table. The smell of home-cooked food drifting from the kitchen.

And those damn sticky notes. Why are there so many?

Dean squints at the nearest one stuck to the lamp sitting atop an end table. This one he recognizes as Sam's handwriting.

_Elena, if you keep falling asleep with this on, you're going to have to start buying the light bulbs._

Then, scribbled beneath it in handwriting he realizes matches his keys, it simply reads, _drawer_.

Curious, Dean tugs open the end table's drawer, finding it fully stocked with boxes of lightbulbs. He might've laughed if he weren't so annoyed at the situation. All these damn sticky notes only remind him of how much Sam had changed in the time between them.

His head is throbbing still, but Dean brings his attention back to his brother. He feels only a jab of relief to realize that he doesn't look _that_ much older. He isn't sporting any greys yet. He can only hope that he lost a few months. Max. Although, there is something in Sam's eyes that definitely wasn't there before. He can't put his finger on what it is.

"He's lucid," Sam says into the phone, nudging Dean from his thoughts. "A little confused at first, but lucid."

"Still dumb as bag of rocks," Damon adds.

Dean is about to scrap together some retort about the guy's pasty skin when Sam elbows Damon sharply in the rib. "Dude, don't." He glances at Dean apologetically, then snaps, "He doesn't know you well enough anymore to know that you're joking."

"Exactly," Damon says. "I have a very narrow window to pull this shit off before he learns again. Anyway, who says I'm joking?"

Sam rolls his eyes but directs his next words at the phone. "Is there anything we can do?"

It's annoying how comfortable Sam is with this guy. He seems about as moved by Damon's insults as he is by the process of breathing. It occurs to Dean that they might be friends. The thought only annoys him more, so he storms toward them, only to be pleasantly surprised when he identifies the voice on the other end of the phone.

"_First we have to find out how he lost the memories_," Cas says. The familiar gruffness of his voice brings Dean some comfort despite his unsettling words. "_If we treat him without knowing, we may unintentionally damage his brain."_

"Great," Sam sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. "Okay, how can we find out?"

"_Cas and I need to take a look at him_," a female voice volunteers. "_We can be home in less than an hour_."

"Thank you," Sam says, his voice only slightly less tense. "Alright, we'll see you soon, Bonnie."

Dean makes a sound of disbelief as Sam ends the call. "Did she just say 'home'?"

He means the question for Sam, but Damon is the one who answers. "Yes, Winchester. Home. Noun. Meaning a place where one resides—"

"Really, _really_ wasn't talking to you." He feels like his skull had just been hollowed out and now these two are trying to dump in as much new information as possible. He takes a deep breath, then asks, "Sam, I'm gonna need you to tell it to me straight. How many people live here with us?"

Sam, who looks a bit helpless now, glances at Damon quickly for support—a gesture which bothers Dean more than he wants to admit. Damon merely shrugs, nodding for him to answer the question.

Sam offers Dean a small smile. "Not including you and me, there are five others."

Dean releases a breath. Five. Five people wandering around calling this bunker "home". What a joke. Dean had barely begun calling it home himself. The mere thought of it reeks of _warmth_ and _domesticity_ and he wants to shake it off like they're insects clinging to his clothes. That shit has no place here. It can't, not with the business they're in.

With a heavy breath, Dean asks, "Are we at least charging them, or are we just collecting every stray that passes by?"

"I tried to pay you rent but you wouldn't accept it," Damon says before Sam can answer. "And I said, 'Dean, it's fine, I'm rich as can be—' but you weren't having it. You had that annoying noble look that you get when you know you're doing the right thing."

Dean sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm seriously questioning my own choices right now."

Then, as if on cue, a furry monstrosity comes bounding into the room and towards him with excitement. Dean lets out a horrified sound when it leaps, landing it's enormous paws on his chest. It's a big, yellow dog that's wiggling with so much enthusiasm that its collar clinks around noisily.

Dean nudges it back to the ground, but it's not discouraged. The creature circles Dean happily, curling its body between his legs.

_The flea repellent. Sure, we have that but no fucking painkillers._

"Son of a—" he narrows his eyes at Sam and Damon accusingly, who both look like they want to laugh but know it would be a bad idea. "You brought a dog in here?"

"He's yours," Damon says with smug emphasis.

Dean gapes. "You're fucking with me."

"You wish," Damon says. "Go ahead, look at the tag, Winchester."

With a frown, Dean crouches down and reads the name on the tag.

_Waldo. _And on the back, it reads: "_If lost, return to Dean Winchester_" with a phone number listed below it.

At the look of shock on Dean's face, Damon laughs, somehow making Dean hate him even more. The idea of him owning a dog is so absurd that he doesn't even comment on the thing's ridiculous name. Instead, he says, "This isn't my phone number. Did I get a new one?"

Sam and Damon share another look. It honestly makes Dean want to hit one or both of them.

"It's Elena's number."

Elena. That girl they keep mentioning. "That makes no sense."

Sam looks extremely uncomfortable now, as if he were trespassing on fragile ground. Ignoring Dean's expectant glare and clear demand for an explanation, Damon looks at Sam with a mischievous grin and echoes what Sam had already told him.

"Elena's gonna freak out."

. . .

No one wants to tell him who Elena is, much to Dean's irritation. Aside from a few crude (even by Dean's standards) but decidedly unreliable remarks from Damon, all Dean is able to figure for certain is that she's another one of their roommates who's currently on a case and would be back in a few days.

Dean had begun dropping questions about her during unrelated conversation, hoping to surprise someone into spilling. When Sam is in the middle of explaining the elaborate chore system that they'd developed, Dean springs a "IsElenamygirlfriendorsomething?" on him. Sam's face goes comically blank, and he quickly turns away to busy himself with some lore he found on memory spells.

After a few failed attempts, Dean decides to get at his lost memories a different way. The last case Dean remembers embarking on is a blurry memory, one that Sam informed him was where they'd first learned about this new breed of vampire. The kind that Damon is.

Dean can't even bring himself to be surprised at that information. He tells himself that if he didn't feel so fresh off his friendship with Benny, this might bother him more. But right now, there are more pressing things to worry about than the vampire living across the hall. The fact that Dean admits this to himself is enough to send shivers down his spine.

He tells himself that he trusts Sam, and if Sam trusts these people, Dean would too. Any other explanation for his lack of panic would mean something that Dean doesn't want to think about right now.

. . .

By the time Cas and Bonnie arrive, Sam had already deduced that Dean lost somewhere around seven years. The number nearly crushes him, heavy with people and places that were taken from him. It's almost too much to be real.

"We'll get it back, Dean. We'll do everything we can to get all of it back." Cas says at the look on Dean's face. Cas too looks older, less wide-eyed and trusting. Dean wonders how the seven years had weighed on him. By the determined look on his face, Dean can tell that at least his habit for unrealistic expectations remains intact.

Bonnie Bennett is a small young woman with dark hair and sharp eyes that regard Dean cautiously, as if _he _is the one who can't be trusted. She and Cas had arrived together with bags of food and a stack of movies in hand. Cas had dropped everything and rushed to Dean immediately, checking to see if he'd been hurt. Bonnie had stayed back with her arms crossed. Instinctually, Dean refrains from getting too snarky with her—he had a nagging feeling that she would make him regret it.

Now they're all in the war room, Dean sitting at the table with Cas standing behind him. Bonnie stands next to Cas, watching as he places a hand on Dean's forehead and shut his eyes. Across from Dean sits Sam, his eyebrows angled in clear worry. Damon watches silently, cross-legged on top of the table, but Dean can almost hear all the jokes at his expense swirling around in his brain.

A moment passes before Cas speaks:

"The memories are quite deeply buried."

Dean feels a sharp nudge in his head, and his headache comes roaring back. He winces, causing Cas to withdraw gently.

"There's something concealing the memories—keeping them down," he concludes with an apologetic look at Dean. "I can't get to them."

"A wall?" Bonnie suggests.

Cas pauses thoughtfully. "It's more like . . . water."

"What does that mean?" Dean asks, rubbing at his temple. The pain still hadn't subsided.

"Before I arrived, my money was on some kind of curse," Bonnie says, shaking her head. "But I'm picking up something else."

"Picking up?" Dean says.

"She's a witch," Cas informs him.

At this news, Dean's eyes dart toward Sam accusingly, but there is no shame on his brother's face. Not even close. In fact, he thinks he saw a flicker of humor twitching at the corner of his mouth as he watches the witch circle Dean.

_God, this is a nightmare. It has to be. Or at least a really, really weird dream. Djinn maybe? No. I don't desire any of this. And there's no way a djinn would come up with something this fucked up._

"So, what are you picking up, Bon?" Sam asks. _Bon_, like they're best friends. This new Sam is best friends with vampires and witches. Great.

She stares at Dean with a tilt of her head. "This seems more like compulsion."

Damon immediately holds up his hands in surrender, "Don't look at me, I didn't do it."

At Dean's look of impatience, Sam hurriedly explains what compulsion is. First comes further disbelief. Sam had knowingly let a vampire who can _compel_ them into the bunker? Not only that, but apparently _Dean_ had as well? He must have lost his mind somewhere in those seven years.

Frowning, he pushes that aside for later examination, then tries to reach as far back in his memory as he can for anything that might confirm the compulsion theory. The effort proves tiring, like trying to swim down to the bottom of the ocean. The deeper he swims the harder the pressure pushes at him, the harder it is to see through the pitch black.

"Can't you just undo it?" Sam asks Damon when Dean had finally sagged in exhaustion. "Compel him to remember?"

Damon shakes his head. "Doesn't work that way. All memories are connected by something. If I pull on the wrong thread, then I could seriously fuck him up. He could lose more than he already has. As much fun as that would be for me, it's certainly not as fun as watching him squirm like this. To do it right, it has to be done by the vampire who compelled him in the first place."

"Which'll be quite a task since he can't remember where he went or who he saw three days ago," Cas says with a tired sigh. He looks at Dean with a sympathetic smile. "You need rest."

"Not until I get my memories back," Dean says with a stubborn set of his jaw. "There's no way I'm falling asleep." He doesn't think any of them are buying it. "I'm serious, we need to retrace my steps, find out where I went three days ago—"

"We will," Sam says, concern flashing again. "But seriously Dean, you look exhausted."

His head is still throbbing, but he shakes his head. "No. If I sleep, I might lose something. I'm barely absorbing all this new shit as it is."

"Actually," Bonnie says, "Dreams are a great place for memories to surface."

He looks at her, then at Sam, who nods. "We'll keep working, Dean. Get some rest."

. . .

His room isn't as different as he thinks it would be, which is a comfort. Everything is pretty much where he left it: the bed, the desk, the shelf. But it looks . . . more complete somehow. More lived in, much to Dean's curiosity.

Instead of a radio, there's now a record player on the table near his bed. Dozens of records line the shelves. Dean has to smile as he flips through them—all his favorites are there. And next to them, much to his surprise, sits about twelve books.

He squints at the titles, recognizing some, but he can't imagine why he would have them. Is he a reader now? The thought pulls a short laugh out of him. It's too weird. He wonders for a second if Damon had left them in here as a joke.

But when he picks up _Oedipus_, he finds a note scratched into the inside cover.

_Dean,_

_This is the _ _ mother _ _ of all of them._

_\--E_

_P.S. You'll get why that's funny after you read it._

He stares at the solitary letter. E. It carries more meaning than he would have liked. Part of him hopes that this girl isn't what everyone is implying. If she is, this would most likely hurt. He has enough guilt as it is without this girl hoping for something that he can't give her.

He sighs, putting the book back on the shelf.

He glares at his pillow in an attempt to will it to hand over his memories. To set everything right again. God, this is a mess.

When he crawls into bed, he lets only one word cross his mind.

_Elena_.

. . .

Brown eyes.

They wade in behind his eyelids. The fluttering he'd felt before becomes a full jolt. Warm. Sweet. Someone's singing, a hopeful melody pulsing through a speaker.

_I've been waiting on my own too long—_

He's looking down at her. Blurred lights surround them. He can't latch onto her features, but he knows she's smiling, and her pink lips are forming words. There's a warm thumping in his chest. A lightness that he can't recognize as she laughs, the sound weaving in and out of the music. Her breath ghosts his name against his mouth—

Her face is there for a moment, but he turns away sharply.

The music sounds lower now, warped, like it's been slowed down. The singer's voice stretches.

_Waiting . . . on my own . . . too long . . ._

He looks back at her and her brown eyes are wild. No longer soft and smiling, but furious. Suddenly, she's on top of him. _Stay. Stay with me. _Her fingers wrap around his neck, crushing, strangling him—

Dean thrashes awake, his limbs getting caught in his blankets like a fly in a web. Panting, he throws them from his body. It's too hot in this goddamn room. Sitting up, he wipes the sweat from his face.

When his head clears, and all that's left is the sound of his ragged breathing, one question bubbles up to the surface.

Was that a dream or a memory?

Something in the center of his gut urges him to run. To pack up his things and ditch this place so heavy with things he doesn't understand.

Then there's her. The girl with brown eyes. Something _happened_ between them and it had been ugly. He can feel it each time those eyes flash behind his. And underneath that is fear. It pulses through his blood like a drug.

But with that fear is something else. Something that clashes with the fear and has no right to rear its awful head after all this time. _This new, other Dean may have made peace with some things, but I haven't. I can't. I won't._

But her laugh finds its way back to him as he, against his better judgement, lets himself drift back to sleep.

. . .

The next morning, his headache persists. Stubbornly. It fucking hurts, and he's in no mood for all these people.

He sits at the kitchen table, anchored to his coffee like a lifeline as the rest of the household bustles around him. Stefan, Damon's younger brother (another goddamned vampire) had arrived just last night and is silently cooking breakfast while Sam and Cas continue sifting through the lore for a way to get around vampire compulsion.

Sam gives Dean a notebook to write down things he needs to remember in the meantime. Damon and Bonnie agree to sit down with him to help fill in events that he'd missed, but to be honest, it makes him feel like a kid in school who would be tested on this information later.

The two are bickering now, disagreeing on what is considered "essential information". While Bonnie zeroes in on the big events—civil rights, scandals, and politics—Damon makes it a point to highlight the least useful information imaginable. The type of incredibly specific pop culture trivia that could only be handy on a game show.

"And Kim married Kanye in 2014," Damon says with emphasis. "Jot that down."

Dean, rolling his eyes for what had to be the fifth time this morning, turns to Bonnie, "Is he always like this?"

Without a moment's hesitation, she replies, "Yes."

"Worse," Sam adds from across the room without looking up from his book.

Cas chuckles, and Damon gives them each an offended frown. "You're all laughing now, but when someone mentions North West and he thinks they're talking about directions, that's on all of you."

Dean puts down his pen to rub at his eyes. "It's too early for this shit."

"What about supernatural events?" Stefan suggests from the stove. Dean can smell the bacon now, and it resurrects him momentarily. He doesn't know what he thinks of this vampire yet, but the food he's producing already puts him a step above Damon.

"Oh, like the apocalypse?" Sam says, like it's a mild thunderstorm that happened the other day.

Dean turns sharply to his brother. "I'm sorry, the _apocalypse_?"

Damon gives him a dismissive wave, "Don't freak out, you two stopped it and saved the world, blah, blah, blah—"

Dean shoves a hand through his hair. He doesn't even know where to begin with that. As Damon begins a lecture on Leonardo DiCaprio winning his first Oscar, a plate of food lands in front of Dean. He looks up to see Stefan standing there with a pot of coffee.

"You'll learn to drown him out," he says, setting the pot in front of him. "You'll need this though."

Dean smirks. Yes. He definitely likes Stefan better.

He starts digging into his food as he watches them all. They're so familiar with each other that Dean wonders how the other Dean fit himself in with them. So far, Bonnie and Stefan seem to like him okay, or at the very least are friendly.

"Was I different?" Dean asks suddenly, drawing their attention back to him. "Different than who I am now, I mean."

Despite his awkward phrasing, they appear to understand. Damon is the first to respond, saying, "You're much dumber now."

Bonnie kicks him beneath the table, only succeeding in making him smirk.

Sam looks thoughtful. "You've always been the same Dean. To me, at least." He pauses, then says, "I guess Elena might be able to answer that better."

Dean scoffs. "Better than _you_?" The idea feels too far removed from reality for him to accept.

Sam shrugs, like it's no big deal. "She has a different perspective."

"I think I have an idea," Bonnie says abruptly, standing from the table. "Maybe we should be treating this like a memory issue instead of a supernatural one. We could use compulsion."

"I thought we agreed that wouldn't work," Dean says.

"No, not to reverse it," she says, an excited spark in her eyes. "To trigger memories." When no one responds she huffs, "If we share memories with him, they might shake something loose in his brain, pull the other memories to the surface. If not, then he'll at least get caught up on the last seven years."

Sam's eyes widen. "Right. You've done plenty of spells that get people to see what you want them to. Cas can do it no problem, and compulsion has the same principle."

"You're saying that we need to show him _our_ memories?" Damon says, a flash of mischief crossing his face.

"Significant memories," Bonnie clarifies. "You know that thread you were talking about earlier? Maybe this is how we find it."

"You all can do that but what about me?" Sam asks. "I'd need one of you to share my memories for me. Is that possible?"

Bonnie looks deep in thought, pacing now. "Yes, that could work. But there might be another way . . . I could come up with something, a spell maybe . . ." she trails off into the library, leaving them staring after her.

"She does that," Cas says, smiling in the direction she'd gone as her mutterings faded.

Dean shakes his head. "I don't know about this."

"We should try it once," Stefan suggests. "A small memory to see how it goes."

"I volunteer to go first!" Damon jumps up with a smirk. "I've got just the memory."

"Yeah, no. Not happening." Dean leaps from his chair and backs away, a clear warning in his eyes.

"What, are you scared of me?"

"Just a bit fuzzy on what your idea of a 'significant memory' is."

Damon gives him a look of mock offense. "Winchester, I've known you for four whole years that you can't remember, and you're telling me you don't want to see any of it?"

Dean glares at him for a moment. But as much as he wants to reject him, and as much as he thinks he'll regret this, curiosity wins him over. "Fine," he says finally. "But if you try anything weird—"

"Don't worry," Damon grins. "I'll be gentle."

***

It's dark. Dean squints around until he spots Damon, sitting upright in bed with an alarmed expression on his face. His dark hair is disheveled, and sleep had barely left his eyes. Just as Dean starts to wonder why the hell Damon's showing this to him, there's a loud _thud_.

Damon shoots to his feet with frightening silence and creeps out of the room. The memory forces Dean to follow him out into the hallway, where Damon's brother is already standing.

"You heard it too?" Stefan asks when they emerge from his room. He's wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt that Dean thinks looks familiar.

Damon nods. "I think it's coming from the front door."

As the two of them began making their way to the source of the noise, another _thud_ makes them jump. They exchange hesitant glances.

"Move!" a voice calls out.

They turn to find Sam barreling down the hallway with a bat in hand and determination in his eyes.

"Wow," Damon laughs as Sam rushes past them in his checkered pajamas. The strength of the passing breeze nearly parts Damon's hair. "Papa bear coming through."

Stefan rolls his eyes (they should really be keeping a running tally), and Dean fights the urge to do the same as they follow Sam into the main room.

When they get there, everyone else is already gathered at bottom of the entry stairs, staring up at the front door. Bonnie shivers next to Cas, who whispers something into her ear. In front of Damon stands a dark-haired young woman who Dean can only guess is Elena. She's wearing a tank top and flannel shorts, hugging herself to keep warm. He can't get a look at her face from where Damon's memory situates him, but he can tell by the hunch of her shoulders that she's tense.

"Falling piano," he hears her mutter. "Falling piano, you son of a bitch."

Dean frowns. Even in the memory of someone who actually knows her, the woman makes no sense. He huffs, then glances around, looking for himself in this memory. After a quick glance around, it becomes clear that he isn't here. Then where—?

_Thud_.

Oh. Dean mutters a curse, then looks up at the door, where Sam now stands with his bat braced to strike. He reaches for the doorknob, then jerks the door open.

Other Dean, the one that loves dogs and vampires and witches, comes tumbling through, cackling like a maniac. Sam catches him. Protector mode switches off, and he sighs. "Really, Dean?"

Other Dean takes one look at his brother, spits a few words at him that Dean can't hear, then pushes away from him. He must have applied more force than is necessary because he loses his balance, sending himself rolling down the stairs in a series of "oofs" and thumps. The group watches helplessly until he arrives at the bottom of the steps nearly upside down.

Suddenly it's obvious why Damon chose this memory, and Dean doesn't appreciate it. Asshole.

Cas and Elena rush forward to help him up and into the nearest chair as Sam ran down the stairs after him. Bonnie hovers close, mumbling something in his direction. Whether they're healing charms or curses, he can't tell.

Frustratingly, since Damon refuses to help at all, Dean still can't catch a glimpse of Elena's face. She hunches over Other Dean, checking his head for injuries.

"You're an idiot," he hears her hiss. "Falling piano, you jerk."

Why does she keep saying that? Before Dean can hear any more, Damon turns his attention to Sam, pulling the memory's focus away from Cas, Dean, Elena, and Bonnie. They appear as blurry splotches in the periphery.

"Doesn't he have keys?" Damon asks him. Already done with this entire situation, Stefan huffs in annoyance, then turns to head back to his room.

Sam sighs, setting down the bat and rubbing a hand over his face. "Yes, but he always forgets."

"And he refuses to get them attached to his car keys," Elena snaps, though Damon _still _doesn't look at her. Interesting.

Damon smirks, "I always thought he could hold his alcohol better."

But Other Dean isn't about to just take that, slurring loudly and incomprehensibly in Damon's direction. Dean can hardly make out any of it aside from the words "slut" and "dick-face" and several more creative things that he didn't think himself capable of. Maybe those books really were paying off.

Ignoring the outburst, Sam replied, "He usually can. I've never really seen him like this. Not this bad, at least."

Dean wonders if this Dean is a drunk. Like the embarrassing kind. That would certainly explain his poor decision making and maybe even his abrupt loss of memory. Maybe it isn't compulsion, but some kind of accident?

Damon's attention draws to Cas then, as he crosses his field of vision with a glass of water for Other Dean.

"Don't you have pajamas?" Damon asks, after staring at the inexplicably trenchcoated angel for a second.

Cas looks up at him and Sam. "What I have is fine."

Damon blinks at his tie in disbelief. "But is it comfortable?"

At Cas' shrug, Damon turns to Sam accusingly, as if Cas were Sam's child that had come to school without a lunch.

"Does he know about clothes, Sam?" Damon asks, eyes wide. "Does he know that he can own more than one pair of underwear?"

Sam holds his hands up in surrender, "As far as I know he does."

"I wash this every few days," Cas offers distractedly. He stands next to Other Dean's slumped figure, taking the now empty glass away before it could slip from Other Dean's fingers. Most of the water had ended up either on his shirt or the floor.

Sam nods. "He washes it every few days."

Bonnie scoffs, leaving Other Dean's side now that he's asleep. Dean notes that Elena is still hunched over him, her hair curtained around her face.

"Yeah, and he has to stand naked while he does it," Bonnie says, crossing her arms. "I walked in on him once."

The group began bickering loudly about Cas' wellbeing, which is ignored by the angel entirely. Faintly, below all the arguing voices, Dean hears him softly say to Elena, "I'll take him back to his room."

She's still blurry, standing at the very edge of Damon's memory like fringe. But he can see her figure as she stands, hugging herself as she watches Cas drag Other Dean away. Dean wants to go to her now. He needs to see the way she looks at him, to know what he would find in her eyes and why everyone is so damn determined to make them into something.

But Damon withdraws—throwing him out of the memory.

***

Dean goes to bed that night with more questions that he had that morning. Damon says that that the memory took place five days before Dean had disappeared. Stefan had shown him something from the morning after. In it, predictably, he looks like shit.

"Elena's looking for you," Stefan tells Other Dean as he drags himself into the kitchen. The sense of amusement that pervades Damon's memory is gone. Instead, this one is tainted with concern.

Other Dean glances at Stefan with a stiff mouth. There is more anger there than Dean would have expected. As far as he knows, _this_ vampire hasn't done anything to cause Dean to dislike him.

"Is she?" Other Dean says finally, yanking the coffee pot from the machine. The glass makes a loud, clattering protest. The coffee isn't done dripping and sizzles onto the hot plate as Other Dean pours himself a cup.

Stefan eyes him carefully. "You guys should really talk this through."

"Sorry," says Other Dean icily, "I forgot that you're an expert on relationships."

That must've touched a nerve because Stefan flinches at the jab, and Dean feels some second-hand guilt just watching the exchange.

When the memory ends, he thinks of the memory Damon had shown him—how Elena seemed to know it was him drunkenly pounding on the door before anyone else—and asks, "Did I have a fight with Elena?"

Stefan hesitates. "She said it was none of my business when I asked."

Dean has a feeling he knows more than he's saying, but he doesn't push it. With Stefan's help, Sam shares a more recent one.

It was the morning of his disappearance, and they exchange nothing more than a few words. Other Dean says he has to go out, and Sam mutters a 'be safe' before Other Dean disappears through the door. Dean can feel Sam's worry swirling around the memory.

No one else saw or spoke to him after that.

While it's good to see a memory so recent, it doesn't offer Dean any new information. Just that he seemed upset, distant, and had just been in some sort of disagreement with Elena.

Now he's lying in bed, wracking his brain for a thread to follow. His mind circles everything he had learned already, going round and round until he arrives back to those final few seconds when the door shut behind him. Still no thread.

There's a missing piece in all this. Elena's smile leans painfully against his headache.

He can blame her for all this. Is that fair? Maybe not. But then he thinks of the anger he saw on his own face in those memories. He thinks of the stupid way Damon had smirked at him when he mentioned her name. Yes. He can definitely blame her for all this—

"Dean?"

Ah, speak of the devil. It's the asshole's voice, muffled through the door. Dean considers pretending to be asleep—

"I can tell by your breathing that you're awake, dumbass," Damon says. Right. Vampire. God, Dean can _hear _the fucking smirk.

Maybe he can find a way to blame Damon _and _Elena for all of this and murder them both.

With a heavy sigh, Dean trudges towards the door and swung it open. "What?"

Ah yes, he is indeed wearing a smirk. The one that made Dean want to learn how to make an entire species of vampire go extinct—

"She's here," Damon says, blue eyes sharp and knowing. "Thought you might want to know."

"What?" Dean repeats dumbly. His brain can't compute.

Damon laughs. "Come on, Winchester. You're gonna have to catch up faster than that if you want to put humpty dumpty back together again."

What was he thinking before? Oh right. Making vampires extinct.

At Dean's continued silence, Damon repeats his statement. This time slower, and with a faint sparkle in his eyes. "Elena's here, Dean. At the front door."


	2. Chapter 2

Elena is in a bad mood.

The case had taken much longer than she would’ve liked. By the time she drives away there’s a fresh bruise on her neck (where the vampire had tried to crush her throat) and a row of crisp stitches along her right thigh. She’d sewn it up herself. Dean would have laughed; it’s sort of an inside joke of theirs that out of her entire medical school education, the only skill she’d ever really had to use was this one.

She winces as she steps toward the bunker. Normally, she wouldn’t mind the throbbing pain in her leg or the dull ache of her throat when she tries to speak, but she’s been feeling pretty shitty for the past three days. Her mind kept slipping away, her stomach flipping hopefully whenever she heard the buzz of her phone.

Dean is okay, she’d told herself. He just wants to be alone, that’s all. Still, even those thoughts felt like a cocktail of all the crap that she has no business feeling right now.

But then she sees Sam’s text, and everything unravels around her. Problem solved. Dean can’t be mad at her when he doesn’t even know who she is.

As soon as she crosses the doorway, her eyes search for him. It’s dumb, but some deep part of her hopes that he’ll see her and, _click, poof, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo_, just like that he’d remember everything. That everything would be fixed.

Of course, wishful thinking never worked for her.

Sam is the first to meet her at the top of the stairs.

“It’s bad, Elena,” he says immediately. He looks tired, his hair dry and scraggly like he’d run a hand through it too many times. She sighs. She and Damon need to take him through the shampoo-conditioner aisle again to have another chat about—

“We think he lost seven years.”

_Shit_. “Seven? Seven exactly?” she asks, voice hoarse. She doesn’t drop her bag as she hurries down the stairs.

Sam nods as he follows, adding grimly. “He doesn’t remember you at all.”

Of all the things she’s afraid of losing, _this_ is what gets taken from her. God. She thinks of all the memories that he must have lost, and for some inexplicable reason, the first image that pops into her head is Dean dropping his phone on his face as they lounged on her bed. He’d always insisted the wifi was better in her room, so he hung around there often. She’d laughed at the phone thing for a good ten minutes while he tried to push her off the bed.

“Where is he?” she asks as Waldo trots up to greet them and circles her happily, ears twitching for her attention. Ah. Another thing Dean’s probably freaking out about.

“Asleep, I think,” Sam says.

Before she even knows what she’s doing, her feet try to bring her to his room. But, realizing that he’d likely be extremely uncomfortable if a stranger burst into his room at one in the morning, she jerks to a stop.

She can’t even go to him.

She exhales heavily, the force of it scratching against her sore throat, and presses her face into her hands. Sam pauses with her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She takes a slow, shaking breath, then looks at him. “How is he?”

Sam smiles softly. “As well as he can be. It’s kinda funny, actually—seeing him the way he was before.”

Elena snorts. Oh, she remembers who he was when she first met him seven years ago and grimaces. It had taken over a year for him to even look at her without a frown on his lips. Friendship had come slowly, then crept up on them like a whiskey’s kick.

“I imagine he’s not too happy about all of us being here,” she remarks, scratching Waldo’s ears absently. She’s glad she at least _sounds_ calm.

“He was . . . surprised. I’m pretty sure he already hates Damon.”

That draws a wry laugh out of her, and she squats down to plant a quick kiss on Waldo’s forehead. He wiggles happily.

“Who doesn’t?” she says.

“Hey!”

She stands and turns, finding Damon with his arms crossed and an expression of mock anger. The ready quip on her tongue dies though, when behind Damon she sees Dean staring directly at her.

. . .

So this is Elena.

As the woman nuzzles her nose into the spot between Waldo’s eyes, Dean tries to get a closer look at her, as if just staring at her could present some kind of explanation as to why everyone here seems unable to go ten minutes without mentioning her.

As he observes her back, he can’t find anything that warrants all the smug looks everyone keeps sharing when they think he isn’t paying attention. He thinks the same when she finally turns to meet his eyes. She has a kind expression, he supposes.

When she nears him, her features sharpen into focus. Dark hair. Nervous smile. The pink tinge of her lips and a small crease between her brows. And she’s shivering, wrapping her arms around her like she’s cold. He wants to inform her that it’s almost winter and why the hell isn’t she wearing a jacket, but she’s looking at him too intently. She has that look in her eyes like she’s a mother hen and he’s her lost baby chick who’d just wandered home. Lord, universe, or whatever is out there, help him.

He absorbs her, tries to find where she belongs in the hollow parts of his mind. She has a nice face. Warm, probably, when it isn’t lined with worry.

But there’s something else—something dark and uncertain. Why is his heart starting to beat so violently?

_Brown eyes._

“Dean,” Elena says. Those eyes are wide, staring at him with concern. “You look . . .”

_Confused? Out of place? Annoyed? Ready to smash my face into the nearest—_

“Afraid,” she finishes. The slight rasp of her voice curls around him, clinging to his ears like cobwebs. A strange sensation lurches inside his chest and it hurts. It takes Dean a moment to realize, but she’s right. He is afraid. His body can’t agree on whether it wants to move closer or bolt, so he remains rooted to the spot.

She must see his desire to run, because a look of pain flashes in her eyes before she asks, “Are you hurt?”

_Yes_. “No.”

She purses her lips. “You’re freaking out. What do you want to know? Ask me anything.”

“I’m fine,” he says irritably. Suddenly all the clues, all the smug glances and snotty remarks, culminate into this one unassuming, five-foot seven mother hen and those headache-inducing brown eyes.

She seems unbothered by the shortness of his tone and offers him a knowing half smile. “I disagree.”

“You disagree?”

“Yeah.”

He scoffs. “You can’t disagree with my feelings.”

“I can if they’re bullshit.”

Good God, it’s barely been a minute of conversing with her and he’s on the verge of shouting. Questioning all his life choices leading up to him speaking to her right now.

“Look, obviously, I know you somehow,” he says. His brain doesn’t, but his body must have. Why else would he be reacting this way? “And you obviously know me.”

Slowly, the smile spreads across her lips. “Obviously?”

“Obviously,” he deadpans. _You don’t have to be so damn pleased about it_. He huffs. “But what . . . are we to each other?”

“Oh,” she says, taken aback. “I mean, that’s a reasonable question, I guess I just never thought—I mean, we never—you never—” she cuts herself off, blushing. This seems like a harder question that he’d anticipated.

It’s his turn to smirk, but his victory is short-lived as another shot of pain pulses at his temples. Suddenly he’s thinking about ice. About filling a bucket with it and sticking his entire head in. Yes. There’s an idea.

He must look murderous because Elena glances at Sam for help. Somewhere behind him Damon laughs, but there’s an edge to it. Dean gets the fleeting impression that Damon doesn’t like Elena. So that’s one thing she has going for her.

“We’re friends,” she seems to decide finally. But the word sounds flat to him. She must hear it too because she amends, “Well, I like to think we are. You weren’t exactly eager to be friends with any of us.” She glances at Damon with a nervous laugh. “Maybe annoying roommate would be more accurate?”

Huh. Finally, something that sounds right. Dean studies her face for a second, then tries the name: “Elena?”

She grins at him, as if he’d said something funny. “Uh, yeah. You’re not big on first names though.”

Dean huffs, already sick of having people explain who he is to him. “Then what the hell do I call you?”

“Gilbert. Stefan is Salvatore,” She points to Damon, “He’s usually something stupid you come up with in the moment.”

Damon nods, “Last I remember, I was Count Assface. Uncreative, but it stuck for a while."

Dean snorts. At least this new him seems as reluctant to warm up to these strangers as he is right now. He sighs, adding these names to his notebook. When done, he looks back at Gilbert to find her watching him carefully.

“And what are you?” he asks, bracing himself. If she says werewolf or demon he might just shoot himself. He narrows his eyes at her and decides, “You’re not a vampire, so what are you?”

“Oh,” she says again, hesitating. “Uh—"

“Is it a hard question?” he asks impatiently.

“No, well, yes—”

“Just spit it out.”

“I’m technically human.”

“Technically?”

Damon smirks, “This oughtta be good.”

Gilbert shoots him a glare before saying. “Yes. I’m human.”

She makes no indication that she’ll elaborate, so Dean just scratches “human” into his notebook, making a note to investigate that further later. He can feel her staring at him again, and he sighs. The thought of dealing with all this staring just to get answers makes him wish he’d done the ice thing.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Six years next month.”

He lifts an eyebrow. Six years. Every other new face hadn’t been around for anywhere near as long. Damon clocks in at the longest with three and a half years. Dean looks at Sam, who just smiles encouragingly.

His eyes return to Gilbert, who is searching his face again in that unsettling way. If she’d really hovered around for the majority of the time he’d lost, there’s a big chance she could fill in the gaps. Thousands of questions spring to mind. Does she know anything about where he went that day? Did she ask to live with them, or did they ask her? Falling piano??

But something inside him fights the urge to ask, telling him to keep his distance, and the words that make it to his lips are, “There’s blood on your face.”

“What?” her eyes widen. “Where?”

Dean gestures to a spot along her jaw, and she wipes at it with her hand, making a face. Her nose scrunches in a way that strikes Dean like déjà vu, or a recurring dream. He stills for a moment, trying to grasp the memory, but just as quickly it’s gone, and she’d turned away.

“Right,” she says, averting her eyes. “I should get cleaned up.”

Dean feels several pairs of eyes on him as he watches her go. He wants to yell at them. To tell them that this isn’t some show for them to entertain themselves with. To pick apart his every expression and decide what his feelings are.

But the energy required for that just isn’t in him, so he grits his teeth and storms back to his room.

. . .

The next morning, Elena is definitely wallowing. She knows this. She knows that it’s pathetic and completely unhelpful, so she allows herself just five minutes. In those five minutes she can feel as much self-pity as she wants—can let the rotten taste of it lay on her tongue. Put on songs to cry to or place a pillow over her face and scream. The options are endless.

But she only has five minutes. Then she has to spring out of bed and pretend that it doesn’t wound her when her best friend looks at her like a stranger. It takes more effort than she has in her. She knows Dean is having a hard time, but part of her feels that he’s lucky he doesn’t remember.

Elena opts for just laying on her back and staring at the ceiling, sighing every now and then. Sighing helps some.

Her wallowing is interrupted by a knock at the door. Puzzled, she looks at the clock, which reads five forty-six. The only other person who could possibly be up at this hour is Sam.

“Elena?”

Bonnie? Curious enough to get up, Elena takes a deep breath and rolls out of bed. She opens the door, doing her best to smile. Bonnie stands there, still in her pajamas with a rather disgruntled look on her face.

“Morning, Bon,” Elena says brightly.

“You’re usually up already, so Sam asked me to check on you,” she says, eyes skimming over her suspiciously. “In case you were having girl problems.”

“_Girl_ problems?” Elena snorts unappreciatively, opening the door to let her in. “So, he woke you up? And he’s still alive?”

“As the only other female available, the guy did what he had to do,” Bonnie shrugs, following her in. “He was worried. We both were.”

Elena plucks a tank top from her floor and pulls it on. She uses her fingers to comb the tangles from her hair as she hunts around for some running shorts. “Tell Sam I’ll be out in five minutes. I still have to brush my teeth.”

“Why you two feel the need to run around town at this ungodly hour is beyond me.”

“If by ‘run around town’ you mean jog, then I have a thing or two to tell you about this thing called exercise.”

“Your tank top’s inside out.”

Elena grumbles and looks down. It is.

“Are you okay?” Bonnie asks as Elena rights the shirt.

“Fantastic.”

Bonnie just purses her lips. “Elena—”

“I’m okay, Bonnie. Really.” Her focus is now entirely on stepping into her running shorts.

Bonnie stares at her for a moment longer, then says, “I’m pregnant.”

“_What_?” Elena loses her balance, foot caught in the shorts, and lands squarely on her ass.

“Pregnant. Me,” Bonnie says with a nervous laugh.

“Oh my—” Any concern she’d had earlier wipes clean off her face. “GOD. Bonnie! That’s—” she laughs, forgetting the shorts and rushing to hug her friend. “How are you feeling?”

Bonnie grins, “I don’t know? Freaking out a bit still, but I think . . . happy.”

“Happy?” Elena says, beaming.

Bonnie nods. “So happy.”

“Shit, you’re gonna make me cry.”

Bonnie laughs, leaning against her. “I still haven’t told him.”

“Tell him when you’re ready,” Elena says, smooshing a kiss to the top of her head. “And I’ll be here for you, whatever you need.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to take away from your—” she gestures around vaguely, “—_situation_ with Dean.”

“Are you kidding? You have a person growing inside of your uterus, Bonnie.”

“I do,” she says with an anxious smile. “And this family’s going to get even bigger.”

. . .

Slowly, Dean falls into a tolerable rhythm with his roommates. While he would rather keep to himself for the purpose of his sanity, he knows that the more he can learn, the better.

He gets most of the memories from Sam with some witchy help from Bonnie. He sticks to the big events: the apocalypse, major deaths, etc. The memory of Bobby’s funeral has him locked in his room for a whole day.

From Cas, Dean gets Sam’s birthday, back when it was still just the three of them lounging in bar. Then he shares a later memory of Cas and Dean just a few years later, purchasing a new couch for the bunker because they needed to be able to fit more people in the TV room.

Dean nearly laughs out loud watching himself, Cas, and Damon try to bring the couch into the bunker. He thinks it should have gone much smoother given the assistance from a vampire and an angel, but the effort proves to be more challenging than any of them had anticipated. After requesting to view the memory a second time, Dean is certain that Damon getting hit in the face with the new furniture had been no accident.

Cas seems reluctant to share any more with him, particularly negative ones, after the Bobby incident.

Damon, on the other hand, seems determined to show him only his most embarrassing moments—none of which are necessarily significant or helpful. He’d shared five so far. Aside from the first of him falling down the stairs, Damon is generous enough to share two short instances of Dean stubbing his toe, one of Waldo farting on him, and another of Dean getting punched in the face by a pishtaco.

Dean stops accepting memories from Damon.

Watching their memories feels strange, like he’s watching a movie where someone else is walking around in his body. Yet, he _feels _things acutely. Not his own feelings, but those of the memories’ owner, particularly what they’d felt toward him at the time.

It’s because of this that he avoids Gilbert entirely. Even though she’s the most likely to have something helpful, some kind of thread, he just can’t bring himself do it. The idea sounds about as appealing as going on a date with a werewolf during full moon or spending more than five minutes alone with Damon.

There’s something there in the air between them. Something left over from before, and he can’t identify it. All he has to do was ask her, but there are too many barbed wires that way, and he could get cut.

Luckily, she makes it easy for him. Every morning she goes running with Sam and Waldo. By the time she gets back for breakfast, Dean’s out of the kitchen, working on memories with Cas or Stefan. When she and Stefan go over cases together, Dean’s already helping Bonnie develop the spell she’s working on that’ll make it easier for memories to be shared with him. It’s a smooth system.

Something about it feels familiar, though. He’s run from shit before, and muscle memory is a hell of a thing. And he has a feeling that this isn’t the first time he’s run from her.

. . .

A few days pass before Sam finally decides that going out on a hunt would do Dean some good.

“This one’s as straight forward as it gets,” Sam explains, leaning in Dean’s bedroom doorway as he packs his bag. This feels familiar, and Dean has to smile at how the action echoes in his head. The comforting way his rolled t-shirts fit next to his jeans.

“We got a family who reported hearing voices at night. The parents think it’s a prank. I’m thinking it’s our basic ghost.”

“Awesome,” Dean says, zipping up his bag. He can’t remember ever looking forward to a case this much. And a boring case, no less.

“And hey, you can roll by Jody’s if you have time afterward,” Sam suggests. At Dean’s raised brow, he adds, “They moved. Jody had some issues at the department. They’re in KC now.”

“Well, it’s been seven years,” Dean says, trying to convince himself more than anyone. “I shouldn’t expect things to be the same.”

Sam smiles softly. “She’ll be glad to see you.”

As they make their way to the front door, Damon catches up with them with a large container of food in hand. He nods a greeting at Sam, then looks at Dean. “Hey, could you do me a favor?”

Dean stops in his tracks and turns to the vampire with narrowed eyes. “What kind of favor?”

“The kind that requires the least amount of effort, don’t worry” he replies with an easy smile. Unoffended by Dean’s clear suspicion, Damon hands him the container. “Give this to Jody for me.”

“What is it?”

“Not poison if that’s the conclusion your scrambled little brain’s jumping to.”

“I never said anything about poison.”

“Your face did. Or at least it implied something equally sinister,” Damon says with a smirk. “You’re more transparent than you think, Winchester.” He looks at Sam, “Are you sure he’s ready to go on his own?”

“I’m fine!” Dean snaps. “And I am not transpar—”

“It’s a simple case,” Sam says calmly. “He needs to get back into the swing of things. He can’t do that if someone’s walking him through everything.”

“Not even Stefan? Dean won’t even know he’s there. You know, I sometimes think we need to put a bell on him, he’s so sneaky—”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Dean says with unintended force.

Damon stares at him. Then, “On second thought, I’ll take my gift back. Who knows, you might _forget_ to give it to her—”

“Oh, shut up, I’m taking her your stupid gift,” Dean says, holding the container away from Damon’s outstretched hand.

“It’s not stupid, and I don’t know if I can trust _this_ Dean as much as I trusted the other one,” he makes another grab for the container.

Dean sidesteps him. “Hell no! You gave it to me; you can’t take it back. I’m bringing this thing to Jody whether you approve or not—is something funny, Sam?” He turns to look sharply at Sam, who’s doing his best to keep from laughing at them.

“Sorry,” Sam says quickly. “This—” he gestures at the two of them, “—it just feels like it used to.”

Damon wrinkles his nose. “Ugh, must you get sentimental? Next thing you know, you’ll start tearing up when Dean starts picking up Waldo’s shit again.”

“Like he’s ever done that,” Elena says, making Dean jump. He turns, finding her next to him with an overnight bag looped over her arm. Her breathing’s a bit labored, like she’d just run from all the way across the bunker.

Against his better judgement—or maybe he’s just irritable from Damon or from the fact that she’s here in front of him after he’d made such a fuss trying to avoid her—Dean takes one look at her bag and says, “For fuck’s sake, don’t tell me _you’re_ coming.”

She flinches minutely. It’s so subtle that no one else seems to notice but Dean, and she drops her eyes away from him.

_Great_._ Nice one, Dean._ Feeling like an utter asshole, he takes a breath and opens his mouth to apologize, but her eyes return to him, flashing.

“No, I’m not,” she replies. “But don’t worry, I think I can survive without you for a day.”

She’s mad at him. Good. That would suit everyone best.

She shoves the bag at him. “I just wanted to give this to you. The one you’re using is your old one. You like this one better.”

He tries to soften his voice, but his annoyance at the whole situation is beginning to test his patience. He’s had his bag forever, and he likes it just fine. “I’ll stick with this one, thank you.”

“Right,” she says, retracting her arm. “Whatever you want, Dean.” She’s smiling, but it looks a bit forced—like he’d just cut her, and she’s determined to pretend that it doesn’t hurt. He knows that look. He recognizes it because he does it all the time.

Sam’s disapproving frown burns at the side of his face, but Dean refuses to acknowledge it. He doesn’t need to feel shittier than he already does. But honestly, how many times does the girl need to be reminded that he isn’t who she wants him to be?

He huffs, ignoring the raised brows Sam and Damon are staring at him with, and turns to leave them all behind.

. . .

As expected, the case is open and shut. _Just like getting back on a bicycle_, he thinks as the cadaver burns. Smoke drifts into the air along with the last of the stubborn spirit that had been torturing the family.

Using the address that Sam had texted him, Dean makes his way to Jody’s. It’s a surprisingly short haul over there, so short that Dean wonders how regularly they visit each other these days.

Jody meets him as he pulls into her driveway, a wide smile on her face. As soon as he steps out of the car, he’s pulled into a warm bear-hug. He leans into it with a smile. This feels familiar. Like returning to a house he once lived in.

When they separate, Jody looks him over, “How’ve you been? Sam texted me this morning, said you’re having some memory problems?” Before Dean can explain, Jody peers around Dean and into the car. “Where’s Elena?”

_For the love of—can he ever get away from this girl? _ “At the bunker.”

“Oh. What’s she doing?”

_Adopting dogs and chasing people with bags they’re supposed like. Wrapping me in barbed wire. Something about a falling piano._ “No idea. How are you doing?”

She raises an eyebrow at his dismissive tone. “Fine. Are you guys having a fight or something?”

He sighs. “Sam didn’t tell you the whole story?”

Jody’s mouth tilts into a concerned frown. “What whole story?”

. . .

As it turns out, Damon had cooked them a mushroom risotto. When Jody moves to taste it, Dean smacks her spoon away with such force that it skids across the kitchen floor. Jody tries to explain to him that the last time she’d visited the bunker she’d brought a batch of Damon’s favorite dessert (tiramisu apparently, but Dean’s determined to forget that information immediately out of sheer spite), and he’s just returning the favor.

When Dean seems satisfied that Damon hadn’t seasoned the dish with something toxic, he joins Jody in eating it for dinner. It’s tastier than he cares to admit.

“Seven years?” Jody says with disbelief, shaking her head. “I can’t even imagine, Dean.”

He nods, poking at his plate of risotto. “It feels like lifetimes with how much has changed.”

“At least you remember me,” she says brightly. “If whoever did this was took a few years more, I would’ve been gone too.” She pauses, then, “God, Elena must be—”

“Freaking out?” he finishes with a frown. “Everyone seems to think so.”

She smiles apologetically. “Sorry. It must be frustrating.”

“Did I contact you about anything before I disappeared? A case maybe?”

She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. “Not that I can remember, sorry.”

Dean shrugs, hope slightly dampened. “It was a long shot anyway.”

Heavy footsteps are the only warning before a blonde girl, probably no older than eighteen, drags herself into the room with a scowl. “If I had a dollar for every time some gross guy—” she spots Dean and breaks into a grin. “Speaking of gross.”

He tries to smile back. Fantastic. Another person he has no memory of.

The girl glances around the room expectantly. Then, apparently not finding what she’s looking for, she looks back at Dean and asks, “Where’s Elena?”

. . .

The girl’s name is Claire, and Jody had taken her in a few years back. After Dean explains his situation (and there’s yet another record scratching round of “I’m sorry” and “Elena must be freaking out”), Dean asks Claire when the last time she saw him was.

“It was a little over a week ago,” she says, digging into the risotto and dumping a heap onto her plate.

That catches Dean’s attention. “That was around the time I disappeared.”

Claire considers it as she chews. “You did seem a bit . . . flustered.”

“Flustered?”

“Like you were nervous about something. You were alone, which I thought was weird because usually you have Sam or Elena with you. And it wasn’t exactly a place to visit by yourself.”

Interesting. “Where was this?”

“Near the Sweet Spot.”

“The—” he looks at Jody for confirmation. He really doesn’t know this kid well enough to tell whether or not she was the type to make shit up. When Jody nods, he looks back at Claire.

“Sorry, I forgot you wouldn’t—” She laughs, then explains, “You and Elena discovered it on a case a few years back. It’s near the suburbs—kind of like a spot kids go to, you know . . . do stuff. Except it’s not kids. It’s where humans with vampire kinks go to get their fix.”

“How the hell does that work?”

She shrugs. “Who knows. There are fewer deaths then you’d think though.”

“Comforting,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “What would I be doing there?”

She shrugs. “I waved at you as you drove past, but you didn’t see me. Like I said, you seemed nervous. Distracted.”

Dean floats through the rest of dinner, catching only bits and pieces of conversation as his brain goes over this new information. Had he been meeting with a vampire? Or had he been investigating a case? If he was, it would be stupid of him to go off by himself without even telling anyone.

The memory of his own angry face just before he left the bunker flashes in his head.

What the _hell_ did he do?

. . .

There’s a loud crash at the front door and Elena jumps, her book nearly tumbling to the floor. It’s nearly midnight and s he’s home alone—a rare occurrence with so many roommates, but it happens. Sam, Damon, and Cas had gone out on a case while Bonnie and Stefan are visiting Caroline’s for a few days.

Heart hammering, Elena rushes toward the sound, tiptoeing silently in her onesie with the hefty book raised to strike. When she sees who had caused the commotion, she lets out a small breath of relief.

“Dean,” she says, “I wasn’t expecting you until later this morning.”

He bends over to pick up his bag—the source of the crash. It appears to have split open at one of the seams, and Dean’s clothes and weapons litter the floor.

“Case was open and shut,” he grumbles, scooping several items into his arms. When he straightens and meets her eyes, he adds, “Not a single word.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were about to laugh.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were about to say, ‘I told you so.’”

She fights to keep her face straight. “I wasn’t!”

He scowls, taking in her appearance: the moose onesie with antlers then the thick novel clutched in her hands. He blinks, then, “Were you going to hit me with that?”

“Probably,” she says, heat rising to her face.

The corner of his mouth twitches. “You wouldn’t need to. That outfit would scare any burglar back out the door.”

She snorts, unable to help herself. For a second it looks like he’s about to laugh too, the humor passing over his face like a flicker of light—but it’s gone by the time the second is over. Elena clears her throat, then picks up a few of his fallen knives and several shirts that he hadn’t been able to carry.

He starts, “You don’t have to—”

“I will,” she says. She stares back at him, and he searches her face warily. After her stare lasts a moment too long, Dean averts his eyes and leads the way to his room.

When they get there, Dean gestures vaguely to his bed. “You can just toss everything there. I’ll sort through it.”

Instead, Elena drops the shirts into his laundry basket, then moves to his weapons drawer to return the knives to their appropriate spot. When she shuts the drawer again, she finds him watching her with a carefully blank look on his face.

“Are you always like this?” he asks as she picks up his bag, inspecting the tear.

“Helpful?” she asks with a grin.

“Persistent.”

“Oh,” she blinks in surprise, as if he’d just pointed out that her hair was brown or that she needs food to survive. It’s not something that she thinks about. But this Dean is able to see her through new eyes, and she can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“Maybe I am, or maybe you just bring that out in me,” she says with hesitation. When he looks puzzled, she explains. “You never ask for help, so I never as if you need it. I just do.”

He seems to think about that for a moment; she feels his eyes on her as she holds the bag out in front of her to continue checking the damage.

“I could fix this if you want,” she offers after a stretch of silence. “I’ve done a million stitches. This can’t be much harder.”

When she looks back at him, his face looks a little flushed. “No need. I’ll see about this other bag. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s hot stuff.”

Elena snorts. “You’re an idiot.”

He smirks, taking the ruined bag from her and folding it into the trash bin. When he’s facing her again, his expression tells her that he’s working himself up to say something. There’s a little wrinkle between his brows that makes her smile—a small downward tilt at the corner of his mouth that she wants to thumb away.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, before her mind can wander in that direction. Thank God for that.

It takes her a second to fully absorb his words. “Sorry? For what?”

“You know what. I’ve been a dick.”

She laughs. As much as she loved the old Dean, she can’t help but draw comparisons between him and the Dean standing in front of her now. Yes, they overlap in many areas—humor, interests, and general temperament—but the old Dean hadn’t been the most open person. This Dean certainly isn’t either, but that jaded edge that often prevented him from building relationships is somehow less sharp. Instead of letting conflict simmer below the surface over time as she’d expected, here he is telling it to her straight: _Sorry. I’ve been a dick_.

She recovers from her surprise, then says, “Don’t worry. I’ve had worse.”

He appears troubled by that, and his eyes search hers as if he could unravel more of her this way, but he doesn’t pry further. Instead, he just smiles and says, “Bigger dicks than me? Impossible.”

. . .

He ignores Elena while Sam and Bonnie wave a book in front of his face. Or he at least tries to ignore her. It’s been weeks, and he still doesn’t know how to act around her.

Dean had been listening to their breakthrough—something about a Men of Letters device that they’d been introduced to earlier this year. Apparently, it would allow Dean to enter someone’s memories. But Bonnie had the idea of creating some sort of charm for him—one that allows him to do this without the clunky device.

Elena had entered the room a few moments ago with that enormous dog close behind, and Dean’s attention immediately splits—half of him listening to Sam and Bonnie while the other half trails after Elena without his permission.

She’s pouring herself a coffee, cream and sugar, and popping a chocolate chip cookie into her mouth. She hums happily as she chews. What song is that? It sounds a lot like—

“This is sort of a prototype,” Bonnie’s saying, holding up a bracelet. It’s a simple black band with a rose dangling from it. “We’re using my bracelet for now, but you can choose what you want to use as your totem later if this works.”

Dean takes it, instantly feeling the tingle of magic against his palm. “How does it work?”

“You hold it up to the person’s temple, like this,” Bonnie says, demonstrating by placing the charm to Sam’s head. “It should mimic the device and let you enter whichever memory the other person is focused on. Here, try it.”

She hands him the bracelet and gestures to Elena, who by now had folded herself onto the sofa with Waldo curled next to her. She looks at him expectantly.

Dean doesn’t meet her eyes and turns to Sam instead. He looks surprised, glancing at Elena, but asks, “Is there anything you want to see?”

He shrugs, offering his brother a smile. “Think of a good one.”

There’s a twinkle in Sam’s eye, then he says, “Got it.”

* * *

They’re at a wedding. Having attended a scarce few of them in the past, Dean has to ogle his surroundings for a few seconds to get his bearings. Already, this experience is very different from viewing memories from the vampires, Bonnie, or Cas. With them, he gets dragged along wherever the memory takes him. He feels freer now, more in control. He can focus his attention where he chooses.

Sam stands next to him, leaning against the bar in a dark blue suit. When Sam turns to look at him, Dean nearly jumps back in surprise.

“Can you see me?” he asks.

Sam shrugs. “I guess so.”

“Whose wedding is this?”

Sam nods toward the head table, where a blond couple feeds each other little bites of cake. The young woman looks around Elena’s age, and is wearing an appropriately poofy white dress for the occasion. Something about the picture strikes a chord of dissonance in his chest—a distant feeling of both joy and bitterness. A thought itches at the back of his mind, but it’s just out of reach.

“Her name’s Caroline,” Sam says, watching the couple with an odd look in his eyes. “We met her through Elena. The groom’s name is Klaus.”

Dean tries to fit those pieces of information in his brain somewhere. “And we’re friends?”

Sam meets his eyes. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

Before Dean can even try to decipher his brother’s lilted tone, Damon approaches them with a disapproving look on his face. He stops in front of Sam, and his eyes flash knowingly.

“You need to stop sulking over here all by yourself,” he says. It takes a second, but Dean realizes that Damon is unable to see him. “You’re creating a black hole on this side of the room.”

Dean looks around and sure enough, the rest of the party seems to be allowing a wide berth around Sam. He sees a couple of girls snatch their drinks and scatter with impressive speed considering the height of their heels.

Sam sighs. “Let me drink in peace. Go terrorize Dean or something.”

Damon makes a face. “He’s off with _Elena_ somewhere doing something stupid.” Damon’s pointed pronunciation of her name sounds irritated, confirming Dean’s earlier suspicion that he doesn’t get along well with Gilbert. After a meaningful pause, he adds, “Lisa won’t be happy.”

Sam shakes his head and reaches for his drink. “I warned him.”

Wait. Back up.

“Lisa?” Dean asks. “Lisa Braeden?”

Sam turns to him, and the memory seems to slow. In front of them, Damon blurs. “You were dating her at this time. She couldn’t make it to the wedding, so you and Elena came together.”

“Dating?” he demands, stuck on that word. He doesn’t even know if he could comprehend any of the information that came after it.

Sam nods, amused by his shock. “That might be a conversation for another day.”

Impossible. He does _not_ date. He’d tried once, but it would never have worked out, so he let her go. He’d made sure that he wouldn’t ruin her life. The he wouldn’t hurt her or her family. It had been a very purposeful decision. What the _hell_ was he thinking?

“Look,” Sam says, a smirk teasing at his lips as he directs Dean’s attention to a table across the room where Other Dean is sitting. Gilbert stands next to the table with—what the hell is that, a fucking turkey leg in her hand? She extends it towards his face as if she means for him to take a bite out of it. Both her and Other Dean look flushed with drink and laughter, the turkey leg shaking in her grasp as she giggles.

“What are we doing?” Dean demands, appalled as Other Dean offers her an entire bowl of soup. In response, she laughs even harder. “We look like a pair of morons.”

Sam shrugs, a faint smile on his lips. “Who knows? Sometimes it was like you two were speaking an entirely different language.”

Great. Another thing to add to the list of infuriatingly inexplicable things Gilbert drives him to do. Surely, one girl hadn’t altered his personality _this_ much. The more he sees of that Dean, the more he dislikes who he’s become.

When the memory ends, Dean wonders if he’d simply turned into more and more of an incoherent mess of a person with each passing day he’d spent with her. But as the day goes on and he watches the flow of unfamiliar people around him, he wonders if maybe that version of himself is a fluke—a result of a random series of events that no longer exists to him.

_Is that all I am then?_ he can’t help but think. _No central core, just the sum of all the shitty things that have happened to me? _

Despite all the questions that hang around him, the one thing he knows for certain is this: that Dean is gone. Erased bit by bit with each memory taken. And if he never gets his memories back he has two choices. He can live a stranger’s life—sleep in his bed, eat with his friends, walk his dog—_or,_ a thought comes to him with a startling clarity—he can choose to start again.

. . .

It’s two in the morning, and Dean’s eyes are wide open.

The dreams press at him more fervently, like they’re angry at him for not remembering. He wants to tell them that he’s angry too.

Deciding to give up on sleep entirely, he trudges from his bedroom to the kitchen. It’s cold, and he’s still in his pajamas, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t even know what he wants, really. Just that he can’t be in his room anymore.

When he gets to the kitchen, someone’s already there. The light by the kitchen table is on, and there sits Gilbert. One of her hands encircles a bottle of beer, and her eyes focus intently on a book in front of her. He spots a little amused smile at her lips. She’s so engrossed that she doesn’t even notice his presence until he clears his throat.

He has to suppress a smirk when she jumps, nearly splashing her beer everywhere in the process.

“Dean,” she says, breathing a relieved sigh. “You have to stop doing that.” She meets his eyes and smiles cautiously. “I’ll get you a beer.” It isn’t a question.

He watches as she goes to the fridge. With the sheer number of potential drinkers in the bunker, there’s an impressive array of beverages and brands to choose from. But she reaches for one without looking.

When she returns, she opens the bottle and sets it across from her at the table. Dean stares at it for a moment before sitting down, careful not to sit too close lest she start getting cozy.

He takes a sip. The fizzing liquid slides down his throat, and his eyes close. It’s exactly the kind that he likes. The kind that the local store only ever has a few packs of in stock at a time, and she knows it’s his favorite. The thought unsettles him. He puts the beer down, clears his throat, then risks looking her in the eyes.

She’s already staring at him, but coughs and tries to look like she wasn’t, hurriedly returning her gaze to the book at hand, cheeks burning.

“What are you reading?” he asks as she pretends to continue reading. He can’t decide if she’s being cute or annoying.

The corner of her mouth tilts up slightly before she meets his eyes again. “It’s, uh, from you actually.”

He raises an eyebrow. He can’t remember the last time he’d even bought a book. Seeing his disbelief, she flips to the inside front cover.

_Gilbert,_

_Page 106. Apparently, it is possible._

_You’re welcome,_

_Dean_

The words must’ve made sense to her because she’s pressing her lips together to hide a laugh. While it means nothing to him, he knows that’s definitely his handwriting.

“What kind of book is it?” he asks.

Gilbert grins fully now, then replies, “Porn.”

Dean almost chokes on his beer. “Porn?”

“Porn.”

He stares at her. “Why would I—?”

“It’s sort of an inside joke,” she says, then her smile turns apologetic, “An inside joke you’re not a part of anymore, I guess.”

When he frowns, she continues. “You made a comment once that girls don’t like porn as much as guys—"

“They don’t.”

She rolls her eyes, “—and I corrected you. I said ‘yes they do. In fact, they even participate in more diverse types of porn than men, such as visual, auditory, and—'” she lifts the book to show him the front cover, a woman obscenely draped across a man’s body— “’literary.’”

“And this is a normal conversation that we’d have?”

She tilts her head. “On a scale of one to ten, this was probably a tame four.”

“God, what’s a ten?”

She gives him an exaggerated smirk. “Exactly what you’re thinking.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“It has to do with tentacles, I just know it.”

Without meaning to, he laughs, and it feels like with it he’d exhaled the weight sitting in his chest. “So what, I just start buying you porn because of that?”

“Well, you thought it was the best thing you’d ever heard in your life. ‘Porn for nerds’, I think you called it. If you passed a bookstore on trips, you always found one and bought it for me.” Her expression is strange when she adds, “It’s mostly a joke. You seemed to think I needed it.”

For a second he thinks he shouldn’t ask—it’s too personal, but one look at her face has the question out of his mouth. “Because?”

She hesitates, then replies, “Because I don’t date.”

His brows furrow. “So what? Neither do I. Sam doesn’t either. The way we live doesn’t allow it.”

The strange expression returns, conflicted, but he catches a trace of sadness in it before she tries to shrug it off. “You didn’t always think that.”

He thinks of Lisa, and how sometime in the past seven years he’d changed his mind on that. But looking at Elena now, he can’t help but wonder if she had been the one to cause that change. Through everyone’s eyes, he’d seen glimpses of them together. They were always together.

He wants to make her explain. To make her feel as exposed around him as he does around her, but he feels the conversation veering dangerously close to old wounds—her old wounds. He can barely handle his own, what makes him think he deserves to know hers?

“How many did I give you? Books, I mean.”

She swirls her beer absently. “Close to twenty?”

Dean thinks of the inexplicable stack of books in his room, then hazards a guess, “And you gave me books too?”

She snorts. “Yeah. The whole thing got way out of hand, but yes.”

At the expression on her face, Dean groans. “Another inside joke?”

She straightens, rearing to defend herself. “Okay, but this one was mostly Damon’s fault. I refuse to be blamed.”

“I didn’t see Damon’s name on any of those books,” he points out.

“_Damon_ is the one who made that stupid joke about you and Sam. He’s the one who provoked you. You two argued for like a week about it.”

“Do I want to know what you mean by joke?”

“I think you already know.”

Dean cringes. “He’s shameless.”

“You said that. You said it was weird and disgusting, but then I said, ‘not that weird’. You started yelling at me then, for encouraging Damon, and I yelled back saying ‘no, it’s true. Probably half of literature is incestuous.’ You didn’t believe me.”

“At this point, I’m starting to think that you get off on proving how uncultured I am.”

“Of course I do.”

“Says the girl who’s probably never listened to Zeppelin or Moody Blues—”

“You know, just because I wasn’t born when their music came out—and neither were you for probably half of it by the way—doesn’t mean that I’ve never heard it. Music can exist for many years you see, even decades, because of this thing called technology—”

“Okay, smartass,” he says, fighting to keep the grin off his face. “Name one album—”

“Uh-uh,” she shakes her head, “I don’t have to prove anything to you. Especially since you seem to believe music evaporates after one generation.”

“I never said that!”

“You’ve implied it,” she says with a lift of an eyebrow. There was a spark in her eyes, then: “You and all the other old people of the world.”

“Wh—I am _not—_" Dean sputters and cuts himself off. He tries to collect himself as she makes an effort to look indifferent, but he can see the smug tilt of her lips. She’s trying to provoke him. He knows it. This doesn’t stop him from demanding, “How old do you think I am?”

She shrugs, making a show of looking thoughtful. Her eyebrows are scrunched downward, and her lips push into a small pout. Again, Dean finds himself questioning what his definition of cute is.

“Not a day over fifty-eight,” she decides gravely.

He snorts into his beer, then looks right at her. She’s full on smirking now. The nerve. “Tell me, how on earth did I tolerate living with you for six whole years?”

She gives him a cheeky smile. “My endless supply of charm and incestuous literature?”

Dean makes a disgusted face. “So you’re telling me that all those books in my room—”

“Involve incest. Yes.” She lets out a small laugh, and Dean is surprised at the small flip his stomach performs at the sound. Her smile is warm but embarrassed when she mutters, “Damn. I screwed up my only second chance at a first impression by talking about porn and incest, didn’t I?”

He scratches his jaw. No. Definitely not cute. “Are all our inside jokes sexual?”

She thinks for a moment, then, “Only the ones involving books apparently.”

“Sam showed me a memory the other day,” he says. “Of us together. I had no idea what the hell we were doing, so I’m assuming it’s another inside joke.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks. Her body is angled completely toward him now, and he wonders if she notices she’s doing it. “Which memory?”

Dean explains what he’d seen, and Elena laughs.

“We were drunk and stupid. It’s not even that funny now that I think about it,” she says, but her eyes are sparkling. “We noticed all these couples at the wedding _feeding_ each other.”

“The height of romance.”

She snorts. “Well, we both thought it was disgusting. It was like they were all competing for who could be the most sickening couple. Naturally, you and I wanted to win this competition, so we spent the rest of the night shoving food in each other’s faces.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Isn’t it?” she agrees with a grin.

“Did we win?

“Of course, we’re not amateurs.”

He watches her as she gulps down the last of her beer.

“Did you think of any memories you could share with me?” he asks, bracing himself. He has to get to this part eventually.

“It’s hard. There are too many to choose from.” She glances at him carefully before training her eyes on the empty bottle in front of her. “You know, we would do this all the time,” she says, gesturing at the two of them sitting at the table. “We’re both bad sleepers, I guess.”

So that explains the beer. “Nightmares?”

She meets his eyes, and he feels something ringing in the air between them. An unspoken understanding. She offers him a crooked smile. “Nothing beats them back like beer and conversation.”

There it is again. A warm _thump_ in his chest.

“Why not start with one of those, then?” he asks. “One of those nights?”

“What would you like to see?” she asks.

He considers it. “Something happy.”

The corner of her mouth tilts upward. Something sparks in her eyes, catching him.

“That,” he says, without thinking. “That’s what I want to see. Whatever you’re thinking of that’s making you smile like that.”

She looks at him nervously, and the ringing intensifies. Taking a breath, she scoots her chair so that she’s closer to him. “Are you sure?”

Dean searches her face for a moment. Something in her expression tells him that she’s asking herself just as much as she’s asking him. Willing his heartbeat to calm, he gently brings the charm to her face, and he thinks he imagines her leaning into his touch.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m sure.”

***


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one but I hope you enjoy it!

It takes a moment for Dean to realize it because the room is so dark, but Elena is crying. The hallway light slips beneath her bedroom door, just slight enough to reflect off of the small tear on her cheek.

He feels hesitant now, more so than he had when he’d entered Sam’s mind. That had felt familiar. Not Sam’s memories, but his essence. His self. There had been a distinct air of confidence, deliberation, and care that Dean had known of his brother since childhood.

But this—being in her head is a different feeling entirely. Not quite uncomfortable or bad exactly. Just . . . something else. It’s warm, but not completely welcoming. Almost like she’s worried about his reaction to what he’ll see.

Dean feels a slight nudge, like Elena’s trying to push his attention away from her crying.

Elena meets his eyes with annoyance. “Would you stop staring at me?”

“What the hell did you want me to look at then, the wall? You’re the one showing me this—"

There’s someone knocking on her door.

Elena shoots him a look of warning, daring him to make fun of her, then untangles her limbs from the sheets to open the door. Light pours into the room, illuminating her flushed face. Her eyes light up when she sees the person standing in her doorway.

“Dean,” she says, conjuring up a smile. It looks genuine despite its struggle to surface.

Other Dean, who’s wearing baggy pajamas and clutching a small paper bag, searches her face. By now, Dean had adjusted to seeing this version of himself. But that doesn’t make it any more pleasant.

Other Dean must see something in her eyes because he says, “Jeremy?”

Elena swipes at her cheeks and coughs out a laugh, “How did you know?”

Dean watches in confusion as Other Dean merely shrugs, a half-smile at his lips. Without answering, he shakes the bag in his hand. It makes a gentle hissing sound, like soft things are sliding around in there. “I brought reinforcements.”

“Is it a surprise?”

Other Dean looks offended. “Of course.”

Dean follows the two of them as they pad toward the kitchen. From behind them, Dean notices that they’re walking closely. The hand that isn’t holding the bag hangs at his side while Elena’s swings near enough to brush his as they walk. Dean stares at the back of Other Dean’s head, wondering if maybe he wanted to hold her hand.

When they reach the kitchen, Other Dean overturns the bag onto the table, spilling its contents across the surface. Several packets of hot chocolate powder, a bag of marshmallows, and cookies.

Elena lets out a gleeful laugh. The sweet sound rings through the kitchen. By her expression alone, someone would’ve thought he’d handed her a million dollars. Dean might have scoffed at the stupidity of it if Elena’s face hadn’t been so priceless. Her watery eyes light up, and her smile comes easily now as she sits down. He turns to Other Dean, finding an odd expression on his face as he looks at her.

_What the hell is that face?_ He stares at himself a moment longer, trying to identify it as well as the strange fluttering in his gut.

“Thank you.” She’s looking up at Other Dean with an expression so purely joyful that he grows uncomfortable. This memory is practically _dripping_ with her happiness.

Instead of saying “you’re welcome,” Other Dean just sits down across from her. Then she asks, “How did you know that my dream was about Jeremy?”

Other Dean looks up at her, a tinge of pink on his cheeks. “Your face,” he says, opening the bag of marshmallows and popping one in his mouth. Elena might not have noticed, but Dean easily recognizes his own attempt at nonchalance.

“My face?” She looks scandalized, wiping at her puffy eyes. “Good God, I hope not.”

Other Dean smirks. “You’re too expressive for your own good sometimes.”

She crosses her arms then demands, “Explain.”

After a moment of hesitation, Other Dean replies. “When it’s about your parents, your energy gets real low, you know? But you don’t cry. If it’s about Jenna, you wake up angry and guilty; your shoulders are usually tensed like you’re ready to fight. Like you want to defend her. If it’s about—” he glances at her carefully, “—me, you’re worried; you get that wrinkle between your eyebrows and you chew on your bottom lip. But, if it’s about _Jeremy_ you get snotty tears.”

Elena blinks, momentarily stunned as she absorbs this. Then, “_Snotty tears_?”

Other Dean snorts, plucking a napkin from the table and waving it in front of her. “Snotty. Tears.”

She makes an offended noise and snatches the napkin from him as he dissolves into a fit of laughter.

***

When they emerge from the memory, Elena quickly stands to busy herself by tending to the dishes left in the sink.

He wonders how many of her memories of him are like that—if that unnamable feeling pervades all of them. Undeniably warm and resilient. He can still feel it sticking to him.

And he can’t shake the feeling that she’s hiding something.

“If that’s your idea of a happy memory,” he says, clearing his throat. “I almost feel bad for you.”

Elena laughs, but doesn’t say anything.

He wants to make light of the situation, but he’d felt it. He’d seen the soft glow of her face when she looked at Other Dean. He watches silently as she continues washing dishes, taking in the tension in her shoulders. The next time she catches his eyes she looks nervous, and it strikes him that she’s worried that she’d revealed something incriminating. It isn’t until later, at nearly sunrise when they both head back to their rooms to catch a few hours of sleep, that it occurs to him that maybe she had.

. . .

Somewhere between awake and asleep the memory arrives awkwardly, stumbling drunkenly through his head. Dean pulls at it, grasping it tight as Elena comes into focus. Her eyes are wide but glinting with a frightening determination.

He’s bleeding. He feels the warm moisture of it clinging to the front of his shirt as he meets her eyes. She’s so close to him that her heavy breath mingles with his.

“What did you do?” he hears himself say, voice breaking. “_Elena, what did you do_?”

There’s more blood now, and he feels his heartbeat flutter in panic. She shushes him, and faintly he hears what sounds like a knife clattering to the ground.

She stares back at him, then says, “What you forced me to.”

When he wakes, his hand immediately moves to the spot just below his ribcage where he felt the blood. Beneath his shirt he searches the now sweaty skin, feeling for a scar or a disturbance in his flesh. There’s nothing.

He lets out a breath, frantically piecing through the dream in a futile attempt to sort through dream and memory.

* * *

She must be a remarkable liar, Dean thinks, because it takes him much too long to notice that Sam or Cas didn’t know much about her life before moving in. When he asks, neither seem to know anything substantial, nor do they seem particularly concerned about it.

“She knows something about what happened to me, I can feel it,” Dean tells Sam. They’re leaning against their punching dummies, taking a short break from their workout as as they watch Elena land a well-aimed uppercut to Stefan’s jaw. Taken by surprise, the vampire takes a single step back. He recovers quickly (she is human after all) and grins at her in approval.

“I don’t know about that, Dean. It seems like a stretch,” Sam says, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“But she’s hiding something,” Dean retorts. “I’m sure of it.”

“We all have shit we’d rather leave behind,” Sam says.

Sometime in the last seven years, they’d turned one of the extra rooms into a training room. On some Sunday mornings, they all like to gather to keep everyone’s fighting skills sharp. This is first time Dean decides to joins them.

According to Sam, Stefan and Damon had taught them some “very useful” skills and created some “very useful” weapons for humans to use against vampires. In return, Sam, Dean, and Cas had apparently taught everyone else how to fight various other supernatural beings.

The idea had stuck Dean, ringing with a feeling that felt akin to warmth or worse, _trust_. The implications of vampires voluntarily giving hunters this information and not expecting it to be used against them—it boggles Dean’s mind.

Instinctually, he wants to poke holes in this entire situation. Prod at it until he finds the thread that makes it all unravel, revealing that it isn’t actually friendship or _family_ after all but some kind of trick.

“The important thing,” Sam goes on, “Is that we know who she is now.”

As if to punctuate his point, they look up to see Stefan lunging at Elena, only for her to use his momentum against him. She pulls him in instead of pushes—yanking him off balance. He flails. then lands face-down on the floor.

When Elena helps him up, he nods with the glint of a proud teacher in his eyes.

“I don’t,” Dean says.

“Then you should get to know her,” Sam replies. “Again, I mean. You trusted her before, you know? Had coffee with her every single morning. You hunted together. Hell, we all thought you two were either madly in love or secretly dating this whole time. That has to count for something.”

It’s as if a lightbulb blinks on in his head. “I need to get close to her—convince her to share more memories with me.”

“That’s a great idea,” Sam says with an encouraging smile.

“Then eventually, when she trusts me enough, I can sneak around in her brain to see what she’s hiding.”

“Wait, Dean—that’s not—”

“I’m gonna flirt my way back into her good graces and expose her secret.”

“I really don’t think—"

Dean stands, a newfound bounce in his step as he makes his way towards Stefan and Elena on the combat mat. Behind him he vaguely hears Sam’s protests.

“Mind if I cut it?” he asks the sparring pair with a grin. Both Stefan and Elena turn to him in surprise. Elena regards him warily while Stefan nods.

“Did you want to fight me or her?” he asks.

Dean makes a show of thinking it over before saying, “I think Gilbert should teach me some moves before I try fighting a vampire. I want to learn that twisty move you guys just did.”

Stefan lifts a brow in shock. “Really?” Now Elena’s staring at Dean like he’d just grown an extra limb.

“Why are you so surprised?” he asks.

Stefan scoffs. “Any time we tried to teach you anything, you waved me off and said ‘I’ve fought plenty of leeches in my time, pretty boy.’”

Elena nods, “And you used much more colorful language than that.”

Oh for the love of—will there never be an end to the comparisons so this Other Dean?

“Well, that was then, and I’m asking for help now,” Dean says shortly. “Do you want to help me or not?”

Elena eyes narrow before she says, “Sure, I’ll help you. But what do I get in return?”

“In return?”

“Yeah. In return for teaching you the twisty move.”

Dean groans. “You’re kidding, right?”

She smiles and lifts her chin. “Am I?”

He glares at her while Stefan rolls his eyes and moves to join Sam by the punching dummies. Dean feels a pang of annoyance when he hears them mutter the words “flirting” and “tension.” He refrains from snapping at them and continues to stare down Elena.

“What the hell do you want?” he asks.

Her smile splits into a wide grin, and damnit his heartbeat very nearly skips. This woman really is diabolical.

“I want you . . .” she says thoughtfully, making his chest tighten. “ . . . to teach me how to fight with knives.”

“Fight with—you mean none of these idiots taught you?”

Her smile falters slightly and there’s a flicker of something in her eyes. “We never got around to it. So, what do you say?”

“It seems like an uneven trade to me. You teaching me one move for me teaching you an entire skillset.”

“Fine,” Elena says. “I’ll teach you everything I know about fighting vampires. How about that?”

“Ha!” Dean peers down at her, “You can’t really think that you can teach me that much more than I already do about vampires.”

“Fine then. No twisting for you,” she smirks, before turning to walk—no, _skip_—out of the damn training room.

“Yup,” Dean mutters, watching her go. “Definitely hiding something.”

Behind him he hears Sam sigh loudly.

. . .

When she and Sam get back from their jog, Elena’s surprised to find Dean sitting at the kitchen counter with two cups of coffee in front of him. He’s hunched over a book, which Elena recognizes as her old copy of _Mansfield Park_ that she’d given him last Christmas. She stops in the doorway, watching him with a smile on her face.

She wishes she could freeze this image. It was something she must have seen hundreds of times before, almost down to the last unkempt lock of hair or wrinkles in his t-shirt. He looks so like the old Dean that her breath catches in her throat.

Then, as if sensing her stare on him, he looks up.

“Hi,” he says, quickly shutting the book. “I, uh, have coffee for you.” He scoots the second cup of coffee closer to her end of the counter. His gaze skims her, taking in her sweaty appearance before averting his eyes and asking, “Wanna sit down?”

She doesn’t realize that she’d been standing in stunned silence until he clears his throat with discomfort. _Speak, Elena. Say something_.

She coughs. “Sure. Thank you.”

It seems an impossibly long journey from the doorway to the seat, with Dean’s eyes trained on her and each step a bit louder than the last.

When she finally makes it, ass well placed into the stool, Dean still hasn’t said anything and is _still_ staring at her. Her stool squeaks as she leans forward for her coffee.

“Oh,” she says, surprised. What a dumb word that is. “How’d you know how I like my coffee?”

He shrugs, somehow managing to look nervous and grumpy at the same time. “I remembered, I guess.” At the look on her face, he quickly clarifies, “I mean, from the other morning.”

“Mm,” Elena says, looking down at the cup to hide her disappointment. She has a feeling he sees it anyway. “Thank you.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, sipping their coffee.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says finally, scrubbing the back of his neck and looking very much like he’d rather not say what he’s about to say.

“Uh-oh,” she says, laughing at his discomfort.

He shoots her an unamused look. “I think that I need to get back into my routine. You know, hunting. Work around the bunker. My body seems to remember more than my brain, so I figure if I do all the same things that I used to . . .”

He eyes her pointedly, as if hoping that she’d get whatever the hell it is that he’s trying to say without him having to spell it out. She waits expectantly with an open expression.

Dean runs a hand through his hair, muttering something under his breath before asking, “Would it be okay if we did this every morning? Sam mentioned that this was something we did . . .”

She blinks once, then, “This, as in coffee?”

“Right.”

“Because it’ll help you with your memories.”

“Theoretically.”

“Seems a bit forward of you.”

“What?”

“You know, booking me for a date every morning.”

He snorts. “One, it’s not a date, and two—booking? What are you, an escort?”

“Of course your dirty mind jumped straight to that.”

“You made the jump from coffee to date—"

“Pre-breakfast,” she corrects with a smirk. “That’s what we used to call it. The little breakfast before the actual breakfast.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, and he takes a sip of his coffee to cover it. God, she misses that smile. When he looks at her again, he isn’t smiling but she notices the leftover glimmer of it in his eyes.

“Is that a yes?” he asks.

She pretends to mull over the idea, taking long, exaggerated slurps of coffee. Then she says, “Yeah, I guess.”

He chuckles. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“And no one would be surprised by it because apparently, we’ve been madly in love for six years,” he says with slight irritation.

She doesn’t know what her face is doing, but it must be priceless because he breaks into a full grin. The sight is so surprising that she forgets to respond and just stares at him.

She recovers, blushing now, surely. “Madly in love?”

“Obviously.”

“I mean, in love? Maybe. But _madly_ in love is way over the line.”

“Oh, so that’s where the line is,” he notes. “Porn, incest, and tentacles are fair game but the second one of us is madly in love—”

“Ugh,” she says, shaking her head disapprovingly. “Don’t even say it again, it’s too dirty. Get that shit out of here.”

“Right, I’d post a reminder on a post-it but that might not be a great idea.”

“No?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard?” he said. “We’re secretly dating. And doing a terrible job at it apparently since everyone seems to know it.”

Elena lets out an embarrassing burst of laughter, and he smiles. Almost like he’s happy to have made her laugh.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she says, scandalized. “I could’ve helped with the secret part.”

“Who knows what _that_ guy was thinking.”

“Old Dean was an idiot.”

Dean’s smile wavers, an odd expression crossing his face. “Yeah, he was.”

. . .

“What’s your favorite color?”

Elena looks up from the blueberry muffin that she’d torn open. For their first pre-breakfast, she’d decided to take him to their favorite bakery in town, the one they’d frequented before (pie for him, cookies for her). But today, Dean asked her to choose what to eat, and she’d spent an agonizingly long time deciding what to order for them. Pie is too familiar—yet another piece of himself that he likely feels she hadn’t earned yet.

So, she had settled for something neutral. Muffins and bagels.

This particular muffin had been sold to her by _Clarissa_, and Lord knows what she might have done to it, especially since Dean hadn’t known to charm her—

“My favorite color?” she repeats dumbly, stopping her train of thought. There’s no way that’s what he’d said. But one look at his face confirms that he’s serious. “Why do you ask?”

Dean scratches at his jaw and murmurs, “I just thought—that you—that maybe—" the rest of his words are incomprehensible as he ducks his head, telling the rest of his statement to his bagel.

“Hm?” she says, poking at Clarissa’s muffin with her fork.

He huffs, lifting his head and allowing his voice to actually reach her ears. “I just thought I should know.” It seems much shorter than what he had said initially.

Her eyes meet his again. They’re oddly vulnerable, so she puts down her fork. “Oh,” she says. There’s that word again. “Why?”

Dean searches her face briefly, then smiles. “A secret boyfriend would know these things.”

“Hm. Is there a handbook that I missed out on?”

“Yes, but it’s only for boyfriends. Secret girlfriends are a whole separate book.”

“I must’ve lost my copy,” she says, picking up her fork again and refocusing on her muffin. “But I’m sure it had some gems: All jokes are inside jokes. Harass him with incestuous literature. You know, the basics.”

He rolls his eyes. “Are you always such a smartass?”

She shrugs. “Yup. Also in the handbook.”

“Okay, what the hell did that muffin do to deserve that?”

She frowns and lowers her voice. “It was made by Clarissa.”

His brows lower, glancing at the front counter. The woman in question isn’t there, probably back in the kitchen cooking up more ways to murder Elena. Dean makes that adorable face he does when he’s trying hard to remember. He pulls out his notebook, flipping through the pages. “Is she someone I should—”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she assures him. “Just another girl who’s madly in love with you.”

His confusion turns smug. “Is that right?”

“Ugh. Don’t get so excited.”

“This girl have a phone number?”

“No, actually, she communicates via carrier pigeon.”

Dean smirks. “Do I detect jealousy?”

She narrows his eyes at him. “You know what? You take the first bite. If it’s poisoned, you should be the one to be puking all day, not me—”

“Why would it be poisoned?”

Elena sighs heavily. “Take a wild guess.”

Dean pauses, staring at her as she continues picking at the muffin that’s now been reduced to a pile of crumbs and a smattering of crushed blueberries. After a moment’s thought, he says, “She must’ve realized that we were secretly dating.”

Elena suppresses a laugh. “You’re such an idiot.”

He gives her that half-smile again, the surprisingly sweet one that always makes her heartbeat stutter. “Has she made attempts on your life before, or is this muffin just particularly suspicious?”

“No attempts, but one time I was choking on a peanut and she just stood there, staring at me.”

“Oh, that’s cold.”

“You did the Heimlich, which only made things worse.”

“God, did I hurt you?”

Elena shakes her head. “Oh no, you saved my life, but it just made Clarissa more jealous, which I always thought was ridiculous. That shit is not romantic.”

“What, my big strong arms didn’t take your breath away?” he jokes, waggling his eyebrows.

“Ugh,” she says. “I wish whoever took your memories took the dad jokes away too.”

“Oh please, you love the dad jokes.”

Their eyes meet briefly, and a flicker of something shoots straight to her gut. He smiles.

“Green.”

“What?”

“Your favorite color,” Dean says. “Is it green?”

For some inexplicable reason, her cheeks warm. “How did you—?” For a second, she feels like he’s seeing right through her—like she’d left her diary out somewhere for him to read when it’s just her favorite color for god’s sake—

“Your necklace,” he gestures to the green pendant around her neck. “Green.”

“Oh,” she says, “Right.”

He seems to notice the flush in her cheeks because he clears his throat loudly.

“So we hate Clarissa,” he says decisively.

She smiles, her heartbeat settling. “Yes. We do.”


End file.
